A glass fiber has been widely used as a wick serving to retain an aerosol source near a heater of an e-cigarette. However, instead of the glass fiber, it is considered to use ceramics for the wick, which can be expected to simplify the manufacturing process and improve the aerosol yield.
The e-cigarette in which the glass fiber is used for the wick is controlled to deliver aerosol into the oral cavity of a user, the aerosol being generated by atomizing an aerosol source by a heater immediately after the inhalation is started, and to stop the generation of this aerosol immediately after the inhalation is stopped, such that an unnatural feeling of the inhalation is not provided to the user. When the wick made of ceramics, e.g., alumina is used, it is necessary to advance the timing at which the energization of the heater is started and the timing at which the energization of the heater is terminated in a single puff (inhalation cycle) to enjoy smoking using the e-cigarette with the same feeling as before, because the typical thermal capacity of the wick made of alumina is about 0.008 J/K, which is higher than the typical thermal capacity of about 0.003 J/K in the wick made of glass fiber.
In this regard, there is proposed a technique in which a threshold to determine puff start time is smaller than a threshold to determine puff end time (see PTL 1, for example).
However, when the threshold to determine the puff start time is made small, it is easy to pick up noise, such that unnecessary energization easily occurs.
When the threshold to determine the puff end time is larger than the threshold to determine the puff start time, in the determination made only by comparing the signal and the threshold, the puff end condition is satisfied substantially at the same time as or immediately after the timing when the puff start condition is satisfied.
Furthermore, an appropriate value as a threshold associated with the determination differs depending on the inhalation way, and the inhalation way has differences among individuals.